Last night I'm sitting my easy chair and I'm watching my wife and 2 kids interact with each other. I don't even really know what they were talking about but they were laughing and smiling at each other and my 6 year old son, Gabriel seem animated and hamming it up while the 9 year old, Jonathan tried in vain to get him to stop. Meanwhile my wife Lynn was doing her best to be attentive to both kids.
Then I started to get a lump in my throat and my eyes welled up a bit (not even from the pink eye) as I thought about how much I cared for all 3 of them. As soon as the moment hit me I regained my composure. I am a man after all. I can't show stupid little moments of emotional wussiness like that.
As a preteen, I was always an emotional wreck, I cried quite a lot and would dangle my Phillie Phanatic out the window with my Mork from Ork suspenders. I would imagine how sorry they'd all be if I was the one who went out the window. Eventually, I learned to control my sadness and crying fits. I clamped down so hard that I never cried again until the week before my mother died. (and I didn't cry at the funeral) I've maybe teared up a few times since, but never let the tears come streaming down my cheeks and had an outright bawling session. It's become a natural reflex for me to stop the tears if the urge to cry ever starts.
I suppose it's emotionally unhealthy to do this. I also suppose that I come off as being cold to the people around me. But, I do have those moments of emotional wussiness and as I age and as my family grows and I become ever more fond of them with each passing day I find these moments coming to bear more and more often. Sooner or later, I will be found out and outed as a fraud. I will savor the time when it does.
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